by Jackie Weger
“I’m goin’ to tell Ma how mean you been bein’ to me.” She thrust out her lower lip.
Phoebe eyed Dorie who was listening hard. She didn’t want much mention of Ma and Pa and Erlene just yet. “We’re G. G. Morgan’s guests. Proper manners requires us to wash up,” she admonished. “Do a nicely neat job of it and I won’t make you help me with the washin’. You can watch TV with Dorie and Willie-Boy.”
Maydean kept her pout, but moved to the stove. Satisfied, Phoebe went to inspect the washer and dryer.
The laundry room had its own dusty four-paned window. Daylight streaming through revealed a copper-colored washer with a matching dryer. Long-dirty clothes and linens were piled atop both machines. Phoebe tsk-tsked. Along the opposite wall was another chest of white enamel. A Sears and Roebuck freezer. Phoebe put her hand on it and closed her eyes. It was empty no doubt. She lifted the lid and felt a blast of cold air. She opened her eyes and looked. Full!
There were packages upon packages labeled flounder and steak, whole chickens with plump thighs and breasts. Ground beef, stew meat, green peas, lima beans, ice cream. Ice cream! Phoebe kept rummaging and looking until her fingers were so cold she had to blow on them for warmth. Lor! A body would never go hungry in Gage Morgan’s house. She discounted the dire manner he had toward women. Her estimation of him went up. Oh! This afternoon while clothes were drying on the line she’d sit down and write home. Ma had been beside herself fretting that she’d have to swallow dignity and go stand in line to ask for food stamps. Phoebe could relieve her of that worry. She lifted out a fat chicken to thaw for supper.
Energy high, Phoebe went to the truck and retrieved the sack of trip-worn, dirty clothes. It took her some minutes to sort out how the washer worked, but once it was filled with hot water and detergent, she managed a steady stream out to the clothesline. She longed to use the electric dryer, but prudence suggested sun drying.
Before she washed a single Morgan garment she inspected it, taking care that it was washed according to instructions. Those belonging to Gage Morgan had a smell about them. Of scent. Phoebe put one of his shirts to her nose and inhaled. She got wicked thoughts. Lor! She plunged it into the water.
When all the clotheslines were filled she stood in the shade on the porch and watched towels and sheets and shirts billow in the summer salt-breeze. She had worn a path in the high weeds to the lines. It was almost like trailblazing. Like being a pioneer woman. She had so many good feelings inside she felt weak.
She had hung one of her blouses tail to tail with a shirt belonging to Gage Morgan. In her mind it was an intimate coupling, linking their lives.
All in all, thought Phoebe, this was most likely the best day of her life.
Gage did not come up to the house for supper, but worked in the welding shed long after dark. Phoebe bathed herself and Willie-Boy and sent him and Maydean to bed.
Dorie balked at mention of bed. Phoebe let her be. The child fell asleep on the sofa. When Gage came in, he carried his daughter to her room.
“You want me to help you get her into nightclothes?” Phoebe asked.
“No.”
“I set aside a platter of chicken and biscuits and gravy in the oven for you. You want I should put it on the table?”
“I’ll eat in a bit.”
Phoebe hesitated. Best thing she could do, she thought, was take herself off to bed, too, lest they engage in a conversation regarding her leaving at first light in the morning. “G’night, then.”
Gage nodded absently. His attention was focused on Dorie. He was only now learning how to be a father. Dorie’s mother had held the child up to the world, to himself, as an achievement of her own. Dorie had adored her mother and Velma enjoyed the adoration to an unhealthy degree. She had kept Dorie for herself. Wrongly, to keep peace, he’d allowed it. Now Dorie suffered for it, and he didn’t know how to stop her suffering.
He brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead. Her round tanned face was clean for a change. The Hawley woman’s doing no doubt. He wondered how she’d managed it. Dorie wore her dirt like a badge of honor.
It was too soon to tell, but perhaps allowing the transients into his home wasn’t such a bad thing. Even if it was only for a day or two, they might be a pleasant diversion for Dorie.
He turned on the fan, turned off the light, and went to get his supper. Pleasant for him, too, he mused when he bit into the chicken. He was the worst cook in the world.
Chapter Three
Phoebe awoke in the thin light of morning. Maydean was curled into a ball at the foot of the bed. Willie-Boy lay on his back. She put her ear to his chest. No sound of wheezing. That was good—and bad. She’d have to figure out a way to stay, beyond his recovery. Trust a little to the Lord, she told herself.
She had clean jeans and blouse to wear today. In the bathroom she yanked a brush through her hair, taming it as best she could. A woman had to look her best at first light, Ma always said.
She tiptoed down the hall to Gage’s bedroom. The door was closed. She put her ear to it.
“Looking for me?”
She spun about. He stood at the head of the hall, holding a cup, looking suspicious. Phoebe cast about for the right words. “I was just hopin’ my stumblin’ around didn’t wake you. I get fair noisy in the mornin’.”
“You didn’t.”
She brushed past him, ever aware of his great height and powerful body. He followed her into the kitchen. Coffee was made. Phoebe poured herself a cup, savoring the rich-perked taste of it. “Willie-Boy passed a fair to middlin’ night,” she said.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I washed all the clothes I found in the laundry hamper. I put Dorie’s in her room, left yours folded in the basket. You want me to put ’em away?”
“I can do that.”
“You want me to fix you some breakfast?”
“Never eat in the morning.”
Never stretch out your words, either, thought Phoebe, hunting up something to say so an awkward silence wouldn’t fall between them. “I got that letter written,” she advanced, reminded of the envelope addressed to her mother. “Left a quarter for the stamp on your desk. You reckon I can put your address on it, so’s they can write me back…if there’s work?”
“Meaning?”
“Meanin’ I can pick it up, if one comes after—” She stopped, not allowing the words to cross her lips. “Those seafood houses down the road, are they hirin’? I reckon I could earn enough money outta one of them to pay you for the bumper. That way, if there’s still a job for me, I can get on the road quick.”
He looked at her over the rim of his cup. “You ever pick crabs or shuck oysters?”
“I can pick and shuck with the best of them,” she answered. She had shucked corn and picked cotton many a Saturday to earn extra cash. To her way of thinking picking crabs and shucking oysters couldn’t be much different. She had never seen a live crab or oyster in her life, but she’d seen pictures in National Geographic in the library back home. She wasn’t going to be outdone by any critter smaller than herself. Or bigger, she thought, eyeing Gage. “My hands are agile. My old boss in the cotton mills said I had the best hands he ever saw for threadin’ bobbins.”
‘Threading bobbins?”
“That’s right.” Phoebe displayed her hands, thrusting them out, turning them over. “I know they appear waiflike, but you’re lookin’ at a strong set of hands.” She had his full attention. Seeing as men sometimes didn’t notice what was under their noses unless it smelled high, she decided to give him a good impression of the rest of herself. “Matter of fact, I’m strong all over. I just don’t appear so. I ain’t never had a back problem and my brain is quick on complications.”
“Quick on being slick you mean.”
“Nope, that’s not what I mean a’tall,” she said with undue calm while keeping an eye on him, liking what she was seeing. She was coming close to having wrong way female thoughts about how good he looked, how much man the
re was packed into his pants. She lifted her face and found him smiling at her. Caught, she sniffed. “I ain’t havin’ evil thoughts about you, if that’s what’s makin’ you grin like a cream-fed cat.”
“Wouldn’t do you any good if you were. You’re not my type.”
“That’s a good thing for both of us, ain’t it?” She let a fine friendly smile light up her expression to cover hurt feelings and held it until she thought her face would crack. She didn’t have the time or wherewithal to study on him at the moment. It was just as well he didn’t know how she was when she set her mind to something. “You got any objection to Maydean watching Willie-Boy and Dorie after breakfast while I check with one of them seafood houses? Like as not they’ll put me to work and I can have your seventy dollars by nightfall.”
Mentally calculating the proposed arrangement six different ways, Gage refilled his cup from the percolator. Hers was a simple request. No short end of the stick for either of them. “I’ve no objection. But Dorie can look after herself.” His tone softened when he said his daughter’s name.
“Dorie’s self-sufficient, all right,” Phoebe said, being agreeable. Lor! The child couldn’t look after herself coming or going. Men were blind to the day-to-day responsibility of child rearing. “I’ll tell Maydean not to boss Dorie while I’m gettin’ up your money,” she said, which had the effect of making him scour her with one of his probing once-overs.
Emboldened by the way he was looking at her, thinking that no doubt he was noticing how fresh and neat she was of a morning, Phoebe continued. “I reckon I’ll be back in time to fix you a good supper. Anybody asks me, I’m sure gonna tell ’em how good and kind you been being to Willie-Boy, allowin’ him to stay here and all.”
He muttered an epithet beneath his breath and went out the back door, work boots thudding on the porch. On the path he stopped for a minute, shaking his head. He should’ve looked at it seven different ways, he thought. Phoebe Hawley had a tongue too clever for her head. She’d somehow talked herself into his everyday life. And he was beginning to like it, he concluded in resigned misery.
Watching him stop, seeing him shake his head, Phoebe divined Gage was awed by his good fortune and was trying to absorb it. It wasn’t every day that a man wrecked a stranger’s truck, then found himself enjoying that same stranger’s talent as a cook.
She went to get the letter. On her way walking to the seafood house, she would put it in the mailbox by the gate. Ma would sure be happy to learn she’d found them a place.
— • —
The sun was just giving the sky a good pink color by the time Phoebe approached the first of the seafood houses. A group of women were filing through the opened door. Phoebe got in line behind them. A man stopped her just as she entered the building.
“Hey! Hold it. Who’re you?”
“Phoebe Hawley. I’m lookin’ to pick or shuck.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“Gage Morgan sent me down here.” The man’s name was sewn on his shirt above his pocket. “Gage said for me to see Hank. You know Gage Morgan, don’t you?” Her nose was twitching. The smell of the sea filled the concrete building. Years of it. Phoebe resisted the urge to pinch closed her nose.
“Everybody knows Gage.”
“Well, then?”
“You ever pick before?”
“Sure have.” No sense being dicey with words, she thought, or pointing out it was cotton.
“You’re not from around here.”
That was the trouble with small towns, thought Phoebe, everybody knew everybody. “Sure ain’t. We came down from Cottontown. To help Gage with Dorie and the house and all. What with his wife dying…”
Hank shook his head. “That was a tragedy, Velma drowning. Gage took it hard.”
“He ain’t recovered yet,” said Phoebe, looking properly sad.
“I pay ninety-five cents a pound white, sixty-five cents a pound for claw. That satisfy you?”
Why, picking crabs was just like picking cotton, thought Phoebe, feeling reassured. You got paid on what you picked. She nodded.
“Okay. Through there. Stout will show you where to sit.”
Stout was just that; she had a big square torso below a short neck that held up a round face that displayed a permanent frown crease between her brows. Stout put Phoebe at a long metal table on which was piled hundreds and hundreds of boiled crabs, backs off. When Phoebe sat down she couldn’t see over the mountain of seafood to the worker on the opposite side who shared the table with her. She picked up a crab and looked at it. It didn’t resemble any picture she’d ever seen in National Geographic. In the first place it was dead. It wasn’t the kind of creature a sensible person would eat.
She got up and went around the table. Her table mate had a pleasant face. Phoebe cleared her throat. The woman looked up. Phoebe said, “You got children?”
“Got seven.”
“I got two. One’s sick, I need money and I ain’t never picked a crab before. I only picked cotton and shucked corn.”
The woman laughed. “Better not let Stout hear that. You got a picker?” Phoebe said no. The woman reached into her apron pocket and handed Phoebe a set of nut pickers. “Use them like this.” She demonstrated, breaking open a crab and plucking out the meat. “White meat goes in the clear plastic tubs, claw in the brown. Stout’ll come around and collect your full tubs and give you a chit for every pound. You turn in your chits to Hank and he pays you at the end of the day.”
“What time do we get off?”
“When all the crabs are picked.”
“Lor! I got to be home before dinner.”
“You will be. This here is a short run.”
Phoebe couldn’t imagine ever wanting to see a long run. “How many pounds does a good picker pick?” she asked.
“The best pickers? Forty, fifty pounds a shift. That’s when the crabs are running. You’d better get started. Stout’s looking this way.”
Phoebe learned about crabs. Cooked, they were juicy, sticky, sharp-edged and often hot as they came to the picking tables direct from the huge steam pots out back. They had a sweet, fishy smell that got into her head and stayed there. No sooner was the pile down to where she could see her table mate, Essie, Stout came and dumped another huge bucket atop the table. The crabs that fell to Phoebe seemed to get smaller, the meat more difficult to reach. At two o’clock the last crab had been picked. She turned in her chits and collected thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents. Hank counted out the money.
“Had an off day, did you?” he asked.
Phoebe listened for displeasure in his tone. There wasn’t any. She smiled wearily.
“I been away from pickin’ for a while. My fingers are rusty. Reckon I’ll have a better day tomorrow.” She folded the bills into her change purse. It was the first money she’d earned in months. She didn’t want to have to hand it over to Gage Morgan. That’d just put her closer to getting out of his house. All the way back to the junkyard she examined first one plot then another.
The only certain thought she had was that she didn’t want to look at, pick at, or smell another crab.
The house was quiet. On the kitchen table were breakfast dishes. Phoebe fumed. She’d told Maydean to wash up. Willie-Boy wasn’t in bed. Phoebe went along the path far enough to see that the doors to the welding shed were open. On the breeze she could hear the ping of metal on metal. That took care of the whereabouts of Gage Morgan.
She heard laughter and squeals. Maydean’s cackle. Willie-Boy’s yelp. Dorie’s laughter was more musical. She found the youngsters lying flat out on the rickety wharf, their heads hanging over the edge. Willie-Boy was without his shirt. Maydean had cut off a pair of pants so short immodest parts of her were hanging out. “Maydean Hawley! Is this your idea of being mindful!”
“Phoebe!” Maydean scrambled to her feet. “Lookit. We’re crabbin’. Dorie showed us how. You tie a chicken neck to a string—”
Crabbing! “You wasted a good bo
iling chicken neck on a crab? Maydean, I oughta tear into you. And Willie-Boy was supposed to stay in bed. Throw them crabs back in the bay,” she ordered, trying not to notice the washer tub full of the things. “Willie-Boy, put your shirt on.”
“I didn’t move much, Phoebe. I just laid down here. I feel fine.”
“I’m not throwing my crabs back.” Dorie stood by the tub. “Daddy likes crab gumbo. It’s his favorite food ever.”
“Did he say that?”
“He said it every time my mother cooked it.”
Phoebe wasn’t of a mind to compete with a dead woman. Neither was she of a mind to incur the displeasure of Gage Morgan. She reckoned if he was hungry for crab gumbo… “Tote that tub up to the back porch then. Maydean, you got dishes to wash. But first you put on some decent clothes. You’ve ruined a fair good pair of slacks, cuttin’ them off like that.”
“I ain’t. Everybody wears shorts like this. If you’d buy me a swim suit, I wouldn’ta had to cut ’em up.”
“I’m going to buy you something, Maydean. First loose money I get, I’m goin’ to buy you a shroud. Now get up to the house, like I said.”
“Since I feel so good, can I stay here and keep crabbin’ with Dorie?” asked Willie-Boy.
“Since you feel so good, I reckon you can take a swat on your behind for not mindin’ me. Dorie too, for coaxin’ you outta bed.”
“I wish I was home with Ma.”
“I wish you all were home with your ma,” said Dorie, aiming at Phoebe. “You’re not my boss. My daddy lets me do what I want.”
“Your daddy ain’t got rightful sense.”
“I’m going to tell him you said that.”
— • —
Soaped from head to toe, Phoebe lay back in the big old porcelain tub figuring just how much of her money to put in Gage Morgan’s big, greedy paw. Like as not, he’d want the whole of it.
The way to get around that was to get up some romance. Men didn’t think straight once they were romantically inclined. At least, her brother Joey hadn’t. Soon’s Vinnie had her claws into him, he mooned, moped, thirsted, and went off regular meals. All of that and the only thing Vinnie had going for herself was a pair of endowments that she displayed by wearing tight shirts.